Family tradition ends for veteran firefighter

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Firefighter Gary Richards will work his last shift today at Station 25 on Capitol Hill, ending his family's 100-year streak with the Seattle Fire Department.

Firefighter Gary Richards will work his last shift today at Station 25 on Capitol Hill, ending his family's 100-year streak with the Seattle Fire Department.

Photo: PAUL JOSEPH BROWN/P-I

Family tradition ends for veteran firefighter

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Fifty years ago, Gary Richards was a 10-year-old kid at a party celebrating his great-grandfather's 50th year as a firefighter.

A newspaper photo from the time shows a young Richards toying with plastic fire trucks decorating a cake, his great-grandfather and firefighter father at his side. "You bet I want to be a fireman!" young Richards says in the accompanying article.

Richards, now 59, doesn't remember saying that. Regardless, it turned out to be prescient.

Richards will work his last shift today, retiring after 36 years with the Seattle Fire Department. When he leaves, it will also end a 100-year streak during which some member of the Richards family has served as a Seattle firefighter.

"I'm the only one left of anyone in the family here," Richards said.

The firefighting family tradition began in 1906. The department was formed in 1889, and Seattle was on its fourth chief when Richards' great-grandfather Neil Richards joined up.

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That Richards put in more than 50 years as a firefighter, retiring in 1958. Gary Richards' father, Jack Richards, joined the department in August 1942 and rose through the ranks, serving as department chief in the early 1970s.

Gary Richards said his father's example was probably the biggest reason he joined the department himself.

It just made sense to him.

"You know the job firsthand from what your father was doing," Richards said.

So in 1970, Richards became a Seattle firefighter. He joined at a time when breathing equipment was rarely used, crews still raced to fires by clinging to the running boards of engines and fires were fought primarily by men with little protective gear.

Richards was assigned to Station 25 on Capitol Hill, one of the city's busiest stations. He has remained at that station for most of his career.

"I don't like sitting around," he said. "I like it busy."

Assigned to Ladder 10, the same company with which his father began, Richards became adept at driving the back end of the truck, known as the tiller.

It can be a rough, bouncing ride back there, and Richards has hit the roof, quite literally, more than once racing to a fire.

When Richards joined, the ladder company carried primarily ladders, axes and circular saws. High-tech gear has since joined the collection, including the Jaws of Life, which can tear into a crumpled car in minutes.

Richards has been Station 25's cook for years and the battalion's computer guru.